THE NATIONAL NUESERYMAN 
69 
against additional introductions of dangerous plant diseases 
and insects. 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Feuekal Horticultural Board, 
Washington, D. C. 
February 1, 1919. 
MEMORANDUM CONCERNING QUARANTINE NO. 37, RE¬ 
STRICTING THE IMPORTATION OF NURSERY STOCK 
AND OTHER PLANTS AND SEEDS ON AND 
AFTER JUNE 1, 1919. 
Steps Leading To The Quarantine. 
The need for additional restrictions on the importation of 
nursery stock and other plants and seeds has been under care¬ 
ful consideration by the Board for several years. This need 
has been emphasized by numerous requests and resolutions urg¬ 
ing greater restrictions on plant importations, received from 
officials and associations representing State Departments of 
Agriculture, State nursery inspectors and official entomologists 
and plant pathologists of the United States. Similar requests 
have been received from National and State forestry, horticul¬ 
tural and other allied associations, and from many leading nur¬ 
serymen and florists. As a basis for such additional restric¬ 
tions a public hearing was conducted at this Department May 
28, 1918, and the proposed restrictions were thoroughly discuss¬ 
ed with all the interests involved, including both importing 
nurserymen and seedsmen, as well as leading producing nursery¬ 
men and florists. 
Following this hearing and at the request of the Board, the 
subject was given careful study in all of its phases by the plant 
experts of the Department of Agriculture over a period of sev¬ 
eral months, in the course of which many of the principal nur¬ 
sery and florist establishments of the United States were visit¬ 
ed by these experts and the details of the proposed quarantine 
were discussed with the persons in charge of these establish¬ 
ments. As a result of this extended inquiry a tentative draft 
of proposed regulations was formulated and submitted to the 
principal nurserymen of the country. A final conference was 
then held in the office of the Chairman of the Board, October 18, 
1918, at which all interested parties were invited to submit 
criticisms or suggestions either in person or by letter. The 
quarantine and regulations as promulgated represent, there¬ 
fore, the best judgment of the plant experts of this Department 
based on this extended consideration of the entire subject. 
Orjections Raised in Recent Letters of Protest 
Recently numerous letters have reached the Department 
protesting against the enforcement of the quarantine. Practic¬ 
ally all of these letters are in response to a printed circular 
entitled “Protest Against the Horticultural Import Prohibi¬ 
tion,” signed by Henry A. Dreer of Philadelphia, and sent to 
nurserymen all over the country. Most of the letters receiv¬ 
ed simply repeat the statements contained in Mr. Dreer’s cir¬ 
cular letter. 
In that letter reference is made to what is considered in¬ 
consistencies in the regulations in that they permit the en¬ 
try of rose stocks for propagation and of six varieties of bulbs, 
while they exclude budded or grafted roses and all bulbs 
with the exception of the six varieties referred to. 
During the period when the quarantine was under discus¬ 
sion the Federal Horticultural Board was urged very strongly 
by many advisors, including horticultural and forestry associa¬ 
tions and State plant inspectors and their organizations and 
many American growers, to prohibit the importation of all nur¬ 
sery stock and other plants, on the ground that all such plants 
are sources of risk of introducing dangerous insects and plant 
diseases. 
Such dangers do exist. They are greatest in importations 
from little known countries, many of which do not maintain any 
system of inspection. The dangers are proportionally greater 
among the miscellaneous classes of nursery stock and other 
plants, including bulbs, which are imported in smaller quanti¬ 
ties, but which represent numerous genera and species and may 
bring in a corresponding number of new plant pests. 
While complete exclusion undoubtedly affords the greatest 
measure of safety, the governing principle in the quarantine is 
to limit plant introductons to the classes of plants which have 
been represented by the plant interests concerned in this coun¬ 
try as being essential to plant production, in other words, the 
raw material out of which salable fruit trees, roses, etc., are 
made. To these were added certain classes of plants, including 
bulbs and seeds, which could be reasonably safeguarded by in 
spection and disinfection. 
In the case of rose stocks the distinction between stocks on the 
one hand and budded or grafted roses on the other was made 
with a view to limiting importations largely to such stocks as 
are usually grown in commercial nurseries where special care 
is exercised to control and eradicate pests. The stocks permit¬ 
ted entry under Item 3 of Regulation 3 are practically always 
grown in commercial nurseries, while budded and grafted rose 
plants may, immediately upon their arrival in the United States, 
be shipped broadcast over the country to consumers who pay 
little or no attention to the eradication of any insects or diseases 
the plants may carry. Rose stocks, furthermore, as imported 
are seldom more than one year old, whereas the finished rose 
plants are two years or more old and consequently correspond¬ 
ingly more likely to be the means of introducing pests. 
With respect to bulbs it was realized that a danger existed and 
the entry was restricted to classes of bulbs least subject to risk 
of bringing in new pests and which from their nature could be 
most readily inspected and determined as clean. The excluded 
bulbs involve the less important and miscellaneous importations 
coming from widely scattered sources and the entry of which is 
attended with much greater risk of introduction of plant diseases 
and insect pests. 
Provision is made in the quarantine for the entry in limited 
quantities of these prohibited bulbs and other plants through the 
office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of this Department, 
for the purpose of keeping the country supplied with new varie¬ 
ties and the necessary propagating stock, such entry necessarily 
being safeguarded by the highly developed inspection and quar¬ 
antine service now organized by this Department. It is imprac¬ 
ticable to give this type of inspection to commercial importa¬ 
tions. The cost would be prohibitive, especially under condi¬ 
tions which would require very frequent provision for holding the 
imported material in quarantine for a period of months or years, 
and the necessity for very high grade and expert inspectors. 
Furthermore, inspectors with the training required for this crit¬ 
ical work are not available for handling importations of these re¬ 
stricted classes of plants on a commercial scale. 
IMr. Dreer’s letter also conveys the impression that at the 
hearing and subsequent conference the information given the 
Board was against the advisability of putting the quarantine into 
effect. On the contrary, at the hearing of May 28, v/hich was 
largely attended and of which a stenographic record was kept, 
the argument was strongly in favor of the quarantine, and, as 
indicated in the early part of this statement, the restrictions 
which have been embodied in this quarantine were strongly urg¬ 
ed and endorsed both by many representatives of the nursery 
trade and unanimously by letters received from officials repre¬ 
senting the forest, agricultural and horticultural interests of the 
nation. The conference on October 18 was especially to give op¬ 
portunity to the small body of commercial importers to discuss 
the restrictions provisionally determined upon in the regula¬ 
tions which would directly affect their interests, and this dis¬ 
cussion, therefore, naturally brought into prominence these ob¬ 
jections. On the other hand, important producing nurserymen 
and florists, both in person and by letter, strongly supported 
the restrictions as then presented and Anally adopted. 
The argument presented that this quarantine is unjust to Eur¬ 
opean countries, particularly at this time when they are just re¬ 
leased from the restrictions on commerce caused by the war, 
has weight only in the keen sympathy we all feel, especially 
for Belgium and France. If, however, there are important 
dangers to be guarded against and therefore a real need for 
these restrictions, mere sentiment, however strongly warranted, 
has no place. In point of fact, with respect to the two countries 
which have suffered most from the war, France and Belgium, the 
latter is the only one which is seriously affected by this quaran¬ 
tine. The plant exports of France are largely fruit tree stocks 
which are still permitted entry. Unfortunately the plant exports 
of Belgium are largely ornamentals shipped with earth about the 
roots and are therefore the ones which entail greatest risk to the 
United States; and, furthermore, the inspection service of Bel¬ 
gium is inferior to that of both France and Holland. In the case 
of Holland the argument from the war standpoint does not apply 
to the same extent, and, furthermore, the bulb expoi’ts of Hol¬ 
land are not materially interfered with. The potted and balled 
plants, however, from Holland convey the same dangers that 
they would from Belgium and other foreign countries, and are 
accordingly excluded. 
With respect to this action as to European countries, it may 
properly be noted that this quarantine merely places the United 
States in more close alignment with (but still behind) the action 
long since taken by these countries relative to plant imports 
from the United States, France, Holland, Germany, and to a less 
